Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to just touch on a different issue. It goes to the question of the revenue to be collected by this bill. We know that the budget papers have indicated a series of asterisks in relation to the government's projections as to what revenue this bill is going to generate, and this is in contrast to the Labor approach, which is, I think, a real attempt on our part to adopt a bipartisan position on the issue of multinational corporate tax avoidance. I think you would agree, Minister, that it is unprecedented for an opposition to come forward with a series of revenue measures in advance of a budget being handed down. It was an opportunity for the government to look at what Labor had put forward, and when you examine what was put forward it was a properly costed proposition. It was a $7.2 billion package, and it went to a range of issues: changes to the arrangements for how multinational companies claim tax deductions, greater compliance work by the ATO to track down and tackle corporate tax avoidance, cracking down on multinational companies using hybrid structures to reduce tax, and improving transparency and data matching. So Labor took our approach to the PBO, and we were able to come up with some credible estimates as to what the impact of those measures would be. I know that the government has not done that work up to now.

My question is: has the government in recent times had Treasury look at this issue? Is there any more information you can provide to the Senate in terms of what impact the government's measures will have in the future? If that work has not been done, can you please explain why not?